Baby’s First Christmas: Is it Crazy That I Did Not Go Crazy?

We’re just a couple days away from Christmas and this is a really special one because it’s my son’s first Christmas.

This time last year I was extremely pregnant. I felt uncomfortable, puffy and everything hurt. Here’s to that being over!

People told me, “next year is going to be so incredible!” To a certain degree they are right. It is the most wonderful time of year, but at the same time, my 11 month-old does not have a clue about Christmas and for that reason, I (we) did not go crazy buying him everything under the sun. In fact, he has just a few things under the tree. I have almost nothing besides snacks, socks and bibs for his stocking because every toy that is small enough to fit in a stocking is also small enough to fit in his mouth and that is no good. We aren’t selfish, cheap jerks, I swear. We’re just being practical and we know that he doesn’t understand it all yet, so we are saving our energy and money for when he does. Then there is no turning back and Christmas will be a huge thing.

First visit with Santa

Anything I do for him this year is more for my enjoyment than his (ie: Santa photos where he cried hysterically—I will treasure this photo forever).

My mother, who will proudly tell you he is her only grandchild, has bought him almost every toy that exists. His toy box barely closes. Every time she comes over, she has a new toy and or outfit with her and I love her generosity, but I also remind her that he has so much already. He has toys he has never played with and clothes with tags still on them, but she still always comes with gifts for him. He lights up when he sees her and when she gets down on the floor and plays with him, that’s the absolute best. He will remember her always for that special time and that’s what matters most to me. I try to remind her that I don’t want him to start expecting gifts all of the time because I am trying very hard not to raise an entitled kid. I really want him to understand gratitude. Maybe I am naïve for expecting a lot out of a kid, but that’s my parenting plan: Raise a Nice Little Human.

My mom of course just wants to spoil the heck out of him and she is his grandma, so if that gives her joy, spoil away! I can’t stop her anyway. I know for a fact that she has a sleigh full of presents for him waiting at her house and each one is wrapped meticulously with a color coordinated bow and all of her paper is the expensive thick kind probably with glitter on it. That is just my mom. She is all about the magic of the presentation and I both love and hate that. I love the effort, but I hate the pressure to keep up. It takes a lot of time to do what she does every year and there is very little relaxing. The wrapping in and of itself is a like a full-time job. She and my grandmother taught me how to wrap gifts like a professional when I was kid. I remember it so clearly; folding over the edges and making sure the seams of my paper lined up. No visible tape. Smooth edges.

They were serious wrappers and every year they transformed this huge table in our basement into Santa’s workshop. They are the people who would spend 10 dollars at Jo-Ann Fabrics on one bow and then save and re-use that same bow for the next 10 Christmases. I remember them both checking my packages to make sure they were all crisp and evenly wrapped. I’m still able to wrap pretty well as an adult, but I am not nearly as thorough as them. I do love nice paper and I enjoy a pretty bow to accessorize my gift, but I don’t go overboard. It’s too exhausting. Not every gift is going to have a bow and I have made peace with disappointing my mother in that way.

I hope this posting doesn’t make me sound like the Grinch because I really do love Christmas, but the things I love have very little to do with all the hard work that goes into making everything “perfect.”

I love Christmas music. I love Christmas decorations. I love watching silly Christmas movies with my husband. I love picking out gifts for the Angel Tree. Those activities bring me true joy.

Wrapping 50 gifts and making sure everyone has something he/she will like? Meh. I feel a lot of pressure to keep up with how we did Christmas when I was a kid. I worry about disappointing people if I got the “wrong” gift. My mom and grandma spent hours and hours shopping, returning, and then more shopping. This was before online shopping and I remember that going to the mall or a store like Wal-Mart was a full day adventure. I find that exhausting and not at all how I want to spend my time. Amazon Prime and retail websites are my jam. Sitting in front of the fire in my winter pajamas is far more fun to me than braving the crowds on Black Friday.

As you can imagine, I grew up in a house where Christmas was a huge deal and everyone received a pile of presents. That is something to be extremely grateful for and I am. I will never forget the one year my grandparents pulled up outside and the back of the truck was full (I mean literally full) of gifts. When they laid them all out under the tree, half of the living room was covered in presents and we had a big living room. It was amazing as a kid to find the stuff with my name on it and tear into it. Those are good memories.

Over the years, I’ve had mixed feelings about doing Christmas that same way for a lot of reasons, but the most important one is that I have found less joy in gifts the older I get. Gifts are far more exciting to little kids. I am also very committed to raising a kid who is grateful and not spoiled.

I was a spoiled kid for sure. It used to be extremely important to me to get everything on my list and if I didn’t, I felt disappointed. I was definitely a brat and when I look back on that period of my life, I cringe at myself. Until I was about 25, I really did believe Christmas was all about gifts and I believed that the better the gift, the more the person loved me. (I am not even going to unpack that nonsense in this post right now). Now that I am older, and I hope a little less self-indulgent, the gifts seem so secondary to it all.

Of course, I want my child to get almost everything on his list (his birthday is a month later so maybe not everything!) but I also want to keep in mind that an 11 month-old baby does not have a list. He does not want anything accept a nonstop stream of snacks and something to bang on the table with, such as a big spoon which we already own 3 of. His needs are simple. I also have no idea what he’s “into” because he doesn’t talk and as far as he is concerned, he is happily into everything. Cabinets. Drawers. Dog cages. He is curious about it all. He has at least 10-15 toys that make noise and he is just as excited to play with them as he is a piece of paper. Literally, I had to pry a piece of chewed up paper out of his hand the other day. There will come a time in the next year or two when he starts talking where he will want certain things, but for now, we got a few new toys and new clothes and we are good to go. He will unwrap it all (or we will) and hopefully he has a huge grin on his face the whole time. That is the excitement I can’t wait for. He has no idea that his big sister got a lot more presents than he did, and he will be just as happy to sit there and marvel at the shiny paper and the sparkling bows.

This is the year where we take adorable photos of him as he sees it all for the first time. This is the year where I carry him down the stairs in our matching Gnome for The Holidays (Target for the win) jammies and we take our time enjoying the morning together as a family. I don’t have to stress out about whether each person has “enough” presents because I know he isn’t counting. It’s sort of nice to take that stress off of myself.

Some of us moms have a habit of getting sucked into the social media vortex and we end up feeling inadequate because we can’t compete with the Christmas décor or DIY crafting skills of a former art teacher turned stay at home mom of 4.

I’m afflicted with ‘mom guilt’ myself, but I try to remember it’s all an illusion anyway. No one besides the characters in Hallmark movies lives in a house where every surface is trimmed in garland and smells of sugar cookies. Besides Amy who writes this blog with me, I don’t know anyone who actually goes out and chops down their Christmas tree. Again, Hallmark movies…But Amy and her family love to do this as an annual tradition, so it’s not a chore for them. For me, that is a hard pass. I could easily be persuaded into an artificial tree, but I’m not sure if my husband will go for it. He much prefers to get it from Home Depot in the rain and drag it in, leaving wet pine needles all over the floor as we bicker about white vs. color lights and which ornaments we each want to retire. Then we sip hot cocoa by the fire.

Do I have a little guilt about not “going crazy” this year over Christmas? Sure I do. But that’s just a little voice in my head. Sort of like elf on the shelf…I will call it Ted in my Head. It tells me I am not good enough, I didn’t do enough, and a bunch of other bullshit.

But I don’t let that little voice control my life. My kid is going to have an amazing day and we are going to laugh, eat, play and relax. Next year we can worry about getting the life-size talking dinosaur or the battery-operated ride-along Jeep.

This year we are going to keep it simple and just enjoy the little moments.

Second try with Santa